I Annua/ Report of the Conncil. 



President for the term 1888-9, He was the author of the Joule 

 memorial volume, which was published by the Society in 1892, 

 and was the leading spirit in the movement for a public 

 monument to Joule, which resulted in the beautiful statue by 

 Gilbert now in the Town Hall. 



About the year 1899 the Cambridge University Press 

 suggested to Reynolds that a collected edition of his scientific 

 writings would be valuable, and offered to undertake the publi- 

 cation. This signal compliment was highly appreciated by 

 him, and in due course two weighty volumes appeared. The 

 range of subjects covered is so wide that possibly no two 

 authorities would agree in selecting what they considered most 

 important or most characteristic. The papers are all marked by 

 great independence and originality of view, and by the clearness 

 of insight with which essential principles are discerned and irrele- 

 vant details left aside. Several of his memoirs on engineering 

 subjects have taken rank as classics — e.g. the work on Lubrica- 

 tion, on Turbulent Flow in Pipes, and in connection with the 

 Mechanical Equivalent of Heat. Among the shorter writings 

 mention may be made of the papers on the Refraction of Sound, 

 on Group-Velocity of Waves, and on Dilatancy, where simple 

 and convincing explanations are given of phenomena well 

 known indeed, but previously obscure. 



In the mind of Reynolds there appears to have been a 

 connection, partly intrinsic, and partly as regards the scientific 

 principles and methods involved, between such diverse subjects 

 as thermal transpiration, turbulent flow, and dilatancy, on all 

 of which he had worked at one time or other. And it was 

 apparently through this connection that he was led to the re- 

 markable speculation on "The Sub-Mechanics of the Universe," 

 which marked the close of his scientific career, and which con- 

 stitutes the final volume of his collected papers. Unfortunately, 

 illness had begun to impair his poweis of exposition, and the 

 memoir as it stands is afl'ected with omissions and discontinuities 

 which render it difficult to follow. No one who has studied the 



